Lawrence of Arabia 4K Digital Restoration

NO studio today would make a film like “Lawrence of Arabia” — 227 minutes long, featuring a cast of hundreds riding camels through the desert, shot on location (there were no computer graphics in 1962). Yet Sony Pictures’ new 50th-anniversary restoration — playing at the New York Film Festival on Sunday and in more than 600 theaters nationwide starting Thursday — seems fresh and modern, in its political themes and its stunning visual clarity.

The film’s real-life hero, T. E. Lawrence (played by Peter O’Toole), was a flamboyant British officer who gained fame during World War I for leading a gaggle of Bedouin tribesmen in guerrilla assaults on their Turkish occupiers, paving the way for the Ottoman Empire’s downfall. In the process, he came to see himself as a demigod, destined to unite the Arab people and “give” them freedom — an illusion crushed by big-power politics and the Arabs’ own tribal rivalries: a mix that has thwarted dreams for the region ever since, from Gamal Abdel Nasser’s pan-Arabism to George W. Bush’s cakewalk for democracy in Iraq.

Lawrence figured in the debate over our own recent tangles with insurgents, in Afghanistan and Iraq. His memoir, “Seven Pillars of Wisdom,” was tapped both by the United States Army’s counterinsurgency strategists and by skeptics, who quoted Lawrence’s warning about wars against rebellions _ “messy and slow, like eating soup with a knife” — though the enthusiasts took the pronouncement as a challenge.

But the film holds up not only for its historical parallels but also because it’s thrilling and, in its present incarnation, it looks breathtaking.

The key is that this is a 4K digital restoration. When a machine called the Imagica EX scans across each frame of a film’s negative, it creates a digitally encoded replica that consists of 4,000 (actually, 4,096) pixels on each horizontal line. Multiplied by the 2,160 pixels on each vertical line, this makes for a total of 8.8 million pixels per frame.

By comparison, high-definition TV broadcasts and Blu-ray Discs are made from scans of 2.2 million pixels per frame. In other words, 4K images have four times as much detail and resolution as HD or Blu-ray.

In a connect-the-dots diagram, the more dots there are, the more detailed the resulting image. Similarly, in digital scanning, the more pixels there are, the more that image resembles the actual film. The significance is this: The 8.8 million pixels in a 4K scan are enough to reproduce all the visual information in a frame of 35 mm film — every detail of the image, the full dynamic range of bright to dark, the entire spectrum of colors, even the sheen of “grain” that distinguishes film from video. (“Lawrence of Arabia” was shot in 65 millimeter — nearly twice the width of a 35-millimeter frame — so its negative had to be scanned in 8K, creating 8,192 pixels across each line. But it is still referred to as a 4K scan because it has the same density of pixels, the same resolution across 65 millimeters that 4K has across 35 millimeters.)

This was a laborious process. The tech crew, headed by Grover Crisp, Sony’s executive vice president for asset management and film restoration, spent three months in 2009 simply inspecting the negative, one frame at a time (more than 320,000 frames in all), repairing rips and tears, just so it could run through a scanner without breaking.

The 8K scanning, again one frame at a time, consumed the first half of 2010. Then they looked at the result.

“It was amazingly more detailed and sharp,” Mr. Crisp recalled in a phone interview. “That’s the blessing of 4K. The curse is that it exposes a lot more flaws” — dirt, scratches, faded colors and more.

When “Lawrence” was last restored, in 1988, some of these flaws could be disguised by “wetgate printing,” a process of dousing the print in a special solution. But the new restoration has no prints. The film’s digital data are stored on a hard drive, about the size of an old videocassette, which is inserted into a 4K digital projector. In short, the problems would now have to be fixed.

Luckily, there have been dramatic advances in digital-restoration technology in just the last few years. New software can erase scratches, clean dirt and modify contrast and colors not just frame by frame but pixel by pixel. In the old days (circa 2006), if you wanted to brighten the desert sand in one scene because it was too dark, you’d have to brighten the sky too. Now you can brighten the sand — or even a few grains of the sand — while leaving everything else alone. And in those days there was a limited palette for restoring faded colors. Today’s digital palettes are much vaster.

In one sense, this restored “Lawrence” might look better than the original. Because of the film stock’s exposure to the desert’s heat, some of its photochemical emulsion dried and cracked, resulting in vertical fissures. “Some were just a few pixels wide,” Mr. Crisp said, “but some scenes had hundreds of them, filling as much as one-eighth of the frame.”

No other movies Sony had examined suffered from this problem. The company commissioned a restoration lab, MTI Film, to develop a new algorithm to solve it. The lab’s first few tries were rejected; the fissures were erased but new distortions cropped up in their place. Finally, after months of experimenting, a solution was found; the streaks are now nearly invisible.

And they always will be. Sony went to so much trouble to create not just this release but also a new archive for the ages. Film degrades; digital files of 0’s and 1’s do not. In the coming years, new software might allow still better restorations. But the technicians making them can work from the 4K scan. They won’t have to go back to the negative.

For such an acclaimed film, “Lawrence” has had a troubled life. In January 1963, one month after its premiere, it was cut by 20 minutes. Another 15 minutes was chopped for a prime-time ABC telecast. Inexplicably, all 35 deleted minutes vanished until 1987, when Robert Harris, president of the Film Preserve, a New York-based company, working on a 25th-anniversary restoration, found the footage scattered in hundreds of canisters. In many cases, the audio tracks were gone, so he scrambled around the world and got the actors — Mr. O’Toole, Anthony Quinn and Alec Guinness, among others — to rerecord their dialogue. Between the detective work and lots of video improvement (before the days of digital), it took Mr. Harris 26 months to restore the movie — 10 months longer than it took David Lean to make it.

Its life in home video has been spotty as well. The first DVD, in 2001, was made from a badly done HD transfer: colors were way off, contrasts too bright or dim. A redo, two years later, was much better, but the dirt and scratches were cleaned up by a ham-fisted process called “digital noise resolution” — the easiest and, for some problems, the only technique available at the time, but it softened the focus and dulled detail.

A forthcoming Blu-ray Disc of the film, out Nov. 13, fixes all those problems, in part because it’s Blu-ray but more because it’s mastered from the same 4K restoration as the theatrical release. Of course, technicians had to “down-res” the data files to Blu-ray’s HD format because there are no 4K disc-players or TVs on the market. Maybe there will be in time for the film’s 60th anniversary.

Re: New and Upcoming DVDs and BluRays

So my immediate reaction was "cool, a great upgrade from my DVD". Then the movie started playing back in my head, and I honestly got a little sick to my stomach. Say what you want about this movie, but you are a heartless person if you don't think this film is gut wrenching. Which leads me to this: do I really want to buy this, knowing that I'd probably watch it once more (just to justify the purchase) and never open it up again?

Re: New and Upcoming DVDs and BluRays

Posted: Tue May 21, 2013 5:21 am

by SilentBobX

A momentous, awesome moment is upon the horizon:

Eliminators is coming to dvd. It's in one of those 4 movies on one dvd package. The others are Arena, America 3000 and The Time Guardian. I have to scratch my head at those choices, but as long as it's widescreen, I'll be happy. Or at least until a fully loaded special edition bluray comes out. Those who've listened to my rants understand that this is one of my favorite films ever(top 10 or thereabouts as days go by) and I make no apologies for loving it. I feel that the Mandroid(played by Patrick Reynolds) was the template for Robocop, even if cyborgs were nothing new in sci-fi. It's a pot-luck movie of cheesy awesomeness. It homages everything from Star Wars(cute little robot), to James Bond(Andrew Prine recreating Bond's exploding barrel scene in From Russia With Love) I doubt it'll satisfy many who weren't around in the 80s but it's worth a look.

Re: New and Upcoming DVDs and BluRays

Posted: Tue May 21, 2013 9:09 am

by TheBaxter

i think i remember seeing that movie back in the day on HBO, back when HBO only had like 5 movies and showed them over and over and over. i think the other 4 were Super Fuzz, If You Could See What I Hear, Six Pack, and Body Double, if i remember correctly. plus it had denise crosby, pre-tasha yar years. i'll have to check it out again, at the risk of sullying my pristinely-kept childhood memories of classic cinema.

Re: New and Upcoming DVDs and BluRays

Posted: Thu Jan 23, 2014 7:26 pm

by Spandau Belly

Oh, and Friedkin's SORCERER is finally hitting bluray April 22nd. Let's hope they do it up right. They're releasing it in that digi-book packaging, and they usually spring for good transfers 'n shit for those movies.

Re: New and Upcoming DVDs and BluRays

By "BluRay treatment" I assume they mean digitally remastered, extras out the wazzoo, the Criterion kinda shit.

That's a pretty weak list IMO for the BluRay Treatment, although I'd love to see The Outsiders (and its cousin, Rumblefish) get gussied up. Plenty of other 80s classics that could be on that list (yes, I am too lazy to list them...)

Re: New and Upcoming DVDs and BluRays

Posted: Thu Jan 30, 2014 10:56 am

by TheBaxter

i can get behind stuff like lair of the white worm, real genius, and especially the abyss. but this list is sorely lacking in Revenge of the Ninja (especially needed after last years release of Ninja III) and the Breakin' duology.

Re: New and Upcoming DVDs and BluRays

Re: New and Upcoming DVDs and BluRays

Marc Graser wrote:Warner Bros. Home Entertainment will release Diamond Luxe Editions of its films starting Sept. 30 as a way to repackage library titles.

The discs will feature newly designed collector-style packaging.

The first films — “The Green Mile,” “Gremlins,” “Natural Born Killers,” “Forrest Gump” and “Ben-Hur” will be released as anniversary editions, with “Ben-Hur” also offered as a new two-disc Blu-ray package.

All Diamond Luxe discs will include new or additional bonus features and are priced at $24.98.

Warner Bros. said the new line is meant to encourage collectability. It’s also clearly a way for the studio to mint more coin out of its library at a time when more consumers are building digital libraries for their mobile devices.

Re: New and Upcoming DVDs and BluRays

Posted: Wed Jul 02, 2014 2:19 pm

by Spandau Belly

so sorry wrote:

Spandau Belly wrote:Yeah, they have a Clive Barker section at my videostore, whenever I pass by it I briefly debate renting HELLBOUND: HELLRAISER II but then my attention turns to NIGHTBREED. I've held off on seeing NIGHTBREED because they say the studio chopped it to shreds and there are continual rumours that one of these companies like Scream/Shout Factory are going to release the director's cut, and I figured I'd wait for that, but it hasn't happened yet.

Nightbreed was a frustrating movie to watch for sure. I went thru a Barker phase in the late 90s (read a handful of his novels) and I always thought Nightbreed was a cool flick, but riddled with problems. I've heard the rumors as well about all the stuff cut etc, but honestly, unless Barker were to pay for the whole thing on his own tab, it ain't gonna happen. Outside of a very small group of people, nobody's beating down 20th Century Fox's door for a Bluray remastered version (IMO).

Re: New and Upcoming DVDs and BluRays

Posted: Wed Jul 02, 2014 3:16 pm

by so sorry

Spandau Belly wrote:

so sorry wrote:

Spandau Belly wrote:Yeah, they have a Clive Barker section at my videostore, whenever I pass by it I briefly debate renting HELLBOUND: HELLRAISER II but then my attention turns to NIGHTBREED. I've held off on seeing NIGHTBREED because they say the studio chopped it to shreds and there are continual rumours that one of these companies like Scream/Shout Factory are going to release the director's cut, and I figured I'd wait for that, but it hasn't happened yet.

Nightbreed was a frustrating movie to watch for sure. I went thru a Barker phase in the late 90s (read a handful of his novels) and I always thought Nightbreed was a cool flick, but riddled with problems. I've heard the rumors as well about all the stuff cut etc, but honestly, unless Barker were to pay for the whole thing on his own tab, it ain't gonna happen. Outside of a very small group of people, nobody's beating down 20th Century Fox's door for a Bluray remastered version (IMO).

Re: New and Upcoming DVDs and BluRays

Bill Hunt wrote:Animego is releasing a new 2-disc Shogun Assassin Blu-ray/DVD Combo on 10/28. For those who may not know, this is a movie version of the first two Lone Wolf and Cub films edited together.

Re: New and Upcoming DVDs and BluRays

Just learned Shout Factory(or Scream Factory if you prefer) is releasing my beloved ROTOR on bluray on a dual disc with Millenium(the movie not the series).

Also found out Up The Creek and Invasion USA are being release on February 2nd on bluray as well.

Oh happy day.

Mahalo

Re: New and Upcoming DVDs and BluRays

Posted: Tue Jan 19, 2016 9:39 pm

by Fievel

I've never heard of ROTOR. As a child of the 80's who rented many shitcheese films just because the videotape box had a sweet cover, this blows my mind. Also blows my mind that the director had a hand in a ridiculous amount of my favorite childhood cartoons.

Re: New and Upcoming DVDs and BluRays

Posted: Tue Jan 19, 2016 9:55 pm

by SilentBobX

Try watching Red Letter Media's Best Of The Worst episode where they riff on it. It should give you an idea of what you're in store for. But the ending if nothing else is pretty unexpected.

Mahalo

Re: New and Upcoming DVDs and BluRays

Posted: Wed Jan 20, 2016 9:43 am

by so sorry

Fievel wrote:I've never heard of ROTOR. As a child of the 80's who rented many shitcheese films just because the videotape box had a sweet cover, this blows my mind. Also blows my mind that the director had a hand in a ridiculous amount of my favorite childhood cartoons.

In addition, a company called Visual Entertainment has set Nash Bridges: The Fifth Season and Nash Bridges: The Sixth Season for Blu-ray release on 3/17, along with Nash Bridges: The Complete Series. The Third Season and The Fourth Season are due on 2/17. And The First Season and The Second Season street on Blu-ray on 1/20.

Bill Hunt wrote:Speaking of Amazon.com, as we predicted their listing for Funimation’s Speed Racer: The Complete Series Blu-ray disappeared almost as quickly as it appeared. No worries though: Our guess is that Funimation will make their official announcement soon enough. In the meantime, it’s just nice to see some acknowledgement that the title is still coming. Funimation has been fairly quiet about it since they first announced that they’d acquired the U.S. release rights to the show from Tatsunoko Production at Otakon 2015. Just a quick reminder: Funimation plans to release not just the complete Speed Racer series on Blu-ray but also the original uncut Japanese version of the show, Mach GoGoGo, with English subtitles. We can’t wait!

Bill Hunt wrote:And we’ve mentioned this before, but a number of online retailers are still showing FUNimation’s Speed Racer: The Complete Series for Blu-ray release on 5/30 (SRP $22.99). Presumably, the more elaborate version that includes Speed Racer packaged on Blu-ray with the original Japanese version, Mach Go Go Go, is still to be revealed. And keep in mind neither has been officially announced yet by FUNimation, though they did confirm last year that they’re coming in 2017.